Mapping and user location services collect and utilize user location information to provide users with services and information about the user's planned or current location. For example, GPS or cellular tower location (“CellID”) based mapping systems such as Google Maps for Mobile can send real-time, updated information to a user's mobile device such as a cell phone to display maps of the user's position as he or she travels from one point to the next. User location information, such as GPS, WiFi and/or cell ID data, is provided to such systems so that this information can be used for the benefit of the user, such as providing the user with services such as street maps, route planners for travel by foot or by car, or business locator services.
Gathering, utilizing, and storing user location information, however, can present a number of challenges. For example, these systems may receive hundreds of thousands of requests for location information. Some of these requests may be completely legitimate. However, some third parties, commonly referred to as scrapers, may attempt to gain access to database information by misleading the system by manipulating information about the request and origin of the request. Data scraping typically occurs when computers, rather than people, visit websites and automatically collect data intended for an end-user, rather than as input to another program. Scraping is generally unwanted, as it increases system load and loss of control of the information content.
End-user systems, such as Google, Inc.'s Google Location Platform, which provides a global location platform across different device platforms and carriers in the industry, include large location databases and thus become a target for scraping. In the past, anti-scraping efforts mostly relied on human intervention to spot trends and unauthorized access to the database information by dedicated developers conducting data mining, deriving defense policies, and manually pushing to the location server to block the scrapers.
Other entities attempt to overwhelm these end-user information services by sending a large number of requests within a short period. These attacks are known as spam. Spam attacks can slow processing times of legitimate requests causing annoyance, or, in some cases, shutting down the information altogether. Generally, systems rely on user complaints or third party reports of spam attacks in order to identify them.